Red cent, p.8
Red Cent, page 8
part #2 of Jake Hatch Series
"Involuntary?"
"Not that I heard. It'll be on the news tonight and in the papers by morning. I hear that the attorney general intends to prosecute to the limit and ask for the max."
"On all six of them? Some of those youngsters are underage."
He shrugged his shoulders and tossed a pill of silver paper torn from the gum wrapper at the Bunsen burner hole and scored a hit.
"Where'd you hear all this?"
"I naturally called the capital to find out what they intended doing. Harold Chaney was an important man in this state. It seems a crying shame he had to die because a bunch of beered-up Indians decided to use a train for a moving target."
He tossed another pill, and scored another hit.
"I didn't see you at the funeral home last night," I said.
"I'll be there tonight," he said.
"How come you waited?"
"I was here and the funeral home's in Chicago."
"That's what I mean. How come you were here?
How come you didn't go back to Chicago with Mrs. Chaney after you escorted her to the morgue in Des Moines?"
"This company's in the middle of a take-over attempt. Somebody had to be here at headquarters minding the store."
"I thought headquarters was back in Chicago."
"The main business and sales offices are there. But the heart of Chaney Enterprises is right here."
I got up as though my business with him was finished.
"Was Harold Chaney for or against the take-over of his company?" I suddenly asked.
I thought Warden hesitated for a second before he got to his feet and said, "Against it, naturally. Harry wasn't ready for retirement yet. He had plenty of ambition and energy left in him."
I stuck out my hand and shook his, wondering how come it was sometimes people would call a friend or associate by his given name, then by a nickname, and when did they use one or the other.
"Oh, just one other thing," I said when I'd reached the door.
"What's that?"
"Where were you around the time Harold Chaney was shot?"
"Dinner time? I guess I was at home having my own supper. I must've been at home because that's where Florence found me after she got the news."
"Home? I never did ask you where you lived, did I? Not Chicago?"
"Nearer here than there," he said. "My home is the same one I was born and grew up in. Right here in Fort Morgan."
"Almost a thousand miles from Chicago," I said.
"And almost seven hundred to Ottumwa," he said, rolling up another pill and making another bull's-eye. "I was home having supper, and that's where Florence got me first time when she called about nine o'clock."
He was telling me he could never have traveled fourteen hundred miles, seven hundred each way, in about two hours. I didn't point out that he could've been in Ottumwa with no trouble if he and Florence Chaney had reason to lie for one another.
SEVENTEEN
I TOOK THE BUS, rode the thirty-four miles into Akron, and went over to the sheriff's office.
George McGilvray was in his office with his feet up on the desk, staring at the map of the county on the wall. He thumped his boot heels on the floor as he reached out to take my hand.
McGilvray's no rural county sheriff even if Washington County isn't that populated. He was a captain of police in Denver for over twenty years and only pinned on a badge again because old man Chickering dropped dead of a heart attack and there was no one else willing to take on the job.
"How've you been keeping, Jake?" he asked.
"I've been under siege," I said.
"How's that?"
"Every woman I know has decided it's time for them to settle down into a monogamous relationship."
"Understandable, considering all the press and television this AIDS has been getting."
"You think it's how morals were invented? Nothing to do with abstractions of the spirit but practical rules for survival?"
"I'd say it was likely, though I'd also say that whoever decides these things was going too far sending a plague just to get Jake Hatch married."
I made a whoosh of disdain for his lame attempt at humor and asked bow his Bess was keeping.
"The arthritis seems to have let up a little lately. Her hands are a pity to look at, but she says they don't pain her as much." He looked up at the wall clock. "I could leave early if you wanted to come back to the house with me."
"I'm afoot, so you'd have to drive me back again."
"Maybe you'll stay the night," he said. "We'll see."
Bess was at the back porch sweeping out the kitchen and mud room when we pulled into the back yard. Her old station wagon was sitting off to one side gathering dust, so I had an idea she wasn't driving it much because her arthritis was hurting her more than she wanted to let on.
She put aside her broom and gave me a hug. "Come on in, Jake. We've missed you."
George put his hand on my back and urged me through the doors into the big old-fashioned kitchen with the stove against one wall and the table in the middle of the floor close to its heat in the winter and next to the opposite wall underneath the window to catch the breeze in summer. It was spring, the days and nights sometimes hot and sometimes cold, so it sat there in the middle of the linoleum just in case, even though the afternoon was warm.
"If this was England it'd be time for tea," Bess said, "so sit down and I'll make us a cup."
George and I settled down around the table while she fussed with the tea, George tossing a glance her way every now and then, wanting to take the kettle and pot from her, but knowing she'd object.
"I read about the accident," George said.
"They're going to bring those Indians to trial for manslaughter," I said.
He said the same thing I'd said when Warden mentioned it. "Involuntary?"
"I don't know how the charge will come down, but they mean to make an example out of them."
"Well, I suppose it's right. If they killed a man through their carelessness, they should pay the price."
"I think they'll be paying a price for something they didn't do. At least most of them will."
"How's that?"
I started telling them the story from the beginning, mentioning the distance from which the shooting took place, the hole in the first window, the condition of the head after the bullet had done with it and the window blown out on the other side, and what Catalina had to say about all of that.
"Sounds like she's right to me," George said. "Hunting rifle with soft-nosed slugs'd be the likely weapon to do that kind of damage in that sequence."
"Or a shotgun up close if it wasn't for the fact that the dining-car windows are sealed shut and it was holed, not shattered."
"What makes you bring it up, then?" Bess asked, setting down a trivet and a brown teapot. There was a sugar bowl already on the table. She brought a jug of milk, some spoons, and one of those plastic lemons full of juice.
"One of the Indian men had a shotgun with him, instead of a rifle. That seems strange to me. I mean young fellas go carrying guns in their cars for a little varmint hunting, a little plinking, it's usually rifles like the rest of them had. I wonder why the one called Abe was toting a shotgun."
"Why do you think?" George asked.
"Because he'd then be the only one who could say for sure that his shot wasn't the one that killed Chaney."
"Isn't that an interesting thought," George said.
Bess sat down and poured for all of us as I went on telling about the talk I'd had with the Indians.
"I've been thinking about some of what they said that bothers me. They all agreed they were maybe farther, but no closer, than a quarter of a mile from the train. About four hundred yards. But one of them said he could see one of the passengers lift his glass like he was toasting him."
"Could you see a thing like that a quarter of a mile away?"
"That's what I'm wondering."
"If you can't, what do you think it means?"
"It means they were a hell of a lot closer or it means somebody else saw it and mentioned it to them."
"Somebody who was closer."
"Somebody who fired the shot that killed Chaney."
Bess had put milk in George's tea and lemon in her own and now she asked me what I wanted.
"Lemon and sugar," I said.
"What else?" George asked, working over the facts and wanting more.
I told him how cool Florence Chaney seemed to take it, yet how she'd gone out of her way to examine her husband's hand—held it—to make sure it was him that'd been killed.
I told them everything I knew about personal relationships in the family, including Banner's remark about Warden being very friendly with Florence Chaney and her story about the mountain climbing which was to illustrate the fact that if Chaney thought Banner was dead weight then he would've let him go and be justified doing it.
I also mentioned the take-over in progress and how Lewis Warden had hesitated a bit when I asked if Harold Chaney had been against it.
"Who else was along on the climbing expedition?" Bess suddenly asked.
"I don't get your reason for asking, Bess," I said.
"I don't know myself, except it might tell us some thing about Florence Chaney. Was she off with a party of strangers, like one of those Outward Bound adventures, or was she with relatives? Or was she with a friend, a special friend? Also . . ."
"Yes?"
"I think you'd better have a talk with the stepdaughter."
"And why's that?"
"Because if her stepmother was having an affair with anybody on the side, she'd probably know about it.
EIGHTEEN
THE MINUTE BESS ASKED those two questions, I caught her drift. Here I was thinking about the money involved as being a legitimate reason for suspicion of murder, and there she was thinking about infidelity, jealousy, and other such generators of murderous passion.
"When's the last day Chaney's going to be laid out?" George asked.
"Tomorrow evening they'll be cremating him."
"That gives you time, then. You catch the ten twenty-five out of McCook, it'll get you into Chicago three-thirty tomorrow afternoon. Plenty of time for you to go over to the funeral parlor and question the daughter. Question anybody else she might lead you to as well. They'll probably all be there for the last good-bye."
"I wonder if I could manage a visit to Maggie Wister this evening?" I said.
Bess smiled and George grinned.
"Here we thought you made a special trip just to visit with us," he said.
"I surely came to talk this shooting over with you," I said, "and, as usual, I got corroboration on the technicals from you, George, and inspiration on the intangibles from you, Bess, but there's this other problem that's bothering me, too, and I'd like to see Maggie just to see if I can nail it down."
"Nothing we can help you with?" Bess said.
"Well, I'm sure you'd have some words of wisdom concerning it, but since you've been married—what is it—"
"Thirty-five years," Bess provided.
"Thirty-five years," I repeated. "Since you've been married that long I think maybe it'd be best to take my survey among single women who've been on their own for some time."
Bess threw a little glance at George which told me they'd been talking about my unmarried state lately and that she was taking this so-called survey of mine as evidence that I was about to give in.
"You can use my station wagon," Bess said. "It's been lying there unused through the winter . . ."
"But I turned it over every other day, so it shouldn't give you any trouble," George said, finishing her sentence the way married people will do for one another.
"Stay for supper before you go calling?" Bess asked.
"I think I'd better get over there in daylight," I said. "I'll leave your wagon in front of your office, if that's all right, George."
"You forgot they took Akron off the schedule."
"You forgot I work for the railroad," I replied. "I'll just call in dispatch and tell them I'm asking for a flag stop."
"That should give you an extra thirty minutes with the widow," Bess said.
I made the call to the dispatcher, who promised me he'd get right on to the train and tell them about the unscheduled stop. Then I got the keys to the wagon, shook George's hand, hugged Bess very gently, and went out to start the car.
It started on the second try and I was off to Maggie Wister's little cottage, which was only about three miles outside of town.
It was still plenty light enough when I got there.
I parked the car in the drive and walked up to the door, ready to press the bell which would flash lights in every room in the house. But the door opened up and there she was standing in the open doorway, smiling at me, with a little terrier in her arms.
Maggie's maybe the most sensible woman I know, even including Bess McGilvray. She doesn't confuse issues or try to compare cheese and chalk. The loving friendship we have is one thing, domestic commitment another. I leaned toward her to give her a kiss and that little mutt took a nip at my nose. I almost fell over backward trying to get away from his teeth. Maggie laughed, which I didn't think too polite of her, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes filled with contrition.
She nuzzled her face in the dog's neck, making sounds that calmed it down. Then she put it down on the floor at her feet and kissed me properly.
On the way to the parlor she signed that the dog's name was Tippie and he was a Hearing Ear dog, trained to alert her whenever he detected an unusual sound or the approach of a visitor. I looked down at the little wonder dog trotting at our feet, and he looked right back as if to say it was okay with him if I stayed but I better damn well know who was top dog around the house.
Maggie made supper for the two of us, after she fed Tippie, and then I went into the parlor and made a fire in the fireplace before sitting down on the love seat, ready for a cuddle and a chat. Maggie came in with two hot chocolates laced with a smidge of Kahlua, handed me one, and took the other with her over to the wing-back chair, where she curled up with her feet under her.
So, though we hadn't said anything about it at the supper table, it didn't take a detective to see that things had changed in subtle ways in our relationship.
"Can you hear me from over there?" I asked.
She smiled and nodded, letting me know that she could read my lips perfectly well in the light of the floor lamp.
The firelight and the lamp by her chair softly illuminated her face as well, and I had this funny pang shoot through me as though I'd suddenly realized I should have been living the picture I was looking at for twenty years or more.
Her eyebrow went up and she cocked her head a little as though reading my mind, as though saying it wasn't ever too late.
She let go her mug of chocolate with one hand and signed to me, "What's troubling you, Jake?"
"Growing old," I said.
She shook her head a little. I didn't know if she meant I wasn't growing old or if fretting over the inevitable was nothing but foolishness. She passed her hand over her cheeks and signed, "Me, too."
"Not you, Maggie. You never seem to grow a day older from one visit to the next. Maybe it's because you take things so calm. I never saw anyone took things so calm."
She smiled, shook her head again, and turned it to stare into the fire. And I saw, more clearly than I'd ever seen before, just how much it cost her to be alone. To be alone and to be in everlasting silence, too.
I didn't want to have another conversation about AIDS and the risks of making love and the plague years. Tragic as that was, and as overwhelming as the changes would have to be before cures were found or the plague wore itself out for a while, there were more fundamental things being tested here. The same things that've been tried and tested through the centuries. The whole idea of family and companionship. Somewhere or other, in a book, in a television show, I remembered reading or hearing that a man needed two things to make a complete life: his work and a comrade. I had my work, but I was beginning to see I had too many comrades and therefore maybe I didn't have any.
All the while I was thinking this, staring into the fire, glancing at Maggie, sipping my hot chocolate, she was looking at me, reading my mind, carrying on a conversation, matching me thought for thought, and never saying a word.
Then Tippie jumped up next to me and put his head on my leg. When Maggie put her mug aside and came over to tuck herself under my arm on the other side, it just about did me in.
NINETEEN
WHEN I ARRIVED AT THE Adams-Winterfield Funeral Home the next afternoon—the last afternoon of the laying out, the afternoon of the brief memorial—it was pretty clear that Florence Chaney's intention of limiting the mourners to just family and a few very close friends had been knocked off the rails.
There was a crowd outside on the lawn and walkways, at least two mobile television units were taping the scene, and I could identify members of the press milling around looking for somebody to interview.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see Karen Olliphant, the television reporter, smiling at me like the cat that ate the bird.
"What's this all about, Karen?" I asked.
"I might ask the same question of you, Jake, but I won't. Seeing you here gives me the notion that I won't be wasting my time on a financial obit after all."
"How's that?"
"Where you show up, murder and mayhem are sure to be involved," she said.
"Now, Karen, you met me once during the investigation of a homicide, but that's no reason to assume that murder's my only interest. I'm just a plain old railroad detective usually concerned with nothing more than freight theft and passenger fraud."
"That may be, but murder's the only interest that'd bring you over here to the funeral. You don't seem the sort of man who goes trotting around to such things just for the sociability of it."
"Well, now, you don't know that. I had an aunt once used to check the obituaries. She'd go to view everybody that had a name that belonged in the family, by marriage or otherwise. Spent half her life crying into her sleeve for people she didn't even know, on the off chance she might be doing some good for a relative. I might be of the same persuasion."
